Evaluation - New Media Technology

Type of Technology	Pre-productions	Production	Post-production	How effective was it?
Blogger	The main use we allocated this website with was to act as a folder to hold all of our planning work. It meant we could aggregate it all into one place and extract the information we needed to continue producing our sequence efficiently by saving us time and helping us to extract particular pieces of work – e.g. looking at our Vox Pops when deciding on a plot for the film. Blogger provided us with advantages that a paper folder could not. For example using images and videos to express our ideas more clearly instead of writing it all down on a sheet of paper. We could also use hyperlinks to refer to other websites providing extra detail. We could constantly refer back to our work and make adjustments to create a more specific profile of research.	The production did not really make use of blogger. However we did still do our production logs throughout every stage which helped me keep track of what was done and what still needed to be done.	Similar to Pre-production, it acted as a folder for each part of the evaluation.	It enabled us to view each piece of information that we had previously made when needed to extract the necessary information. However it was less successful in aiding our production as it played no major role in the process. Blogs are useful for uploading information and getting into contact with the relevant people. They allow you to create an enhanced profile of research by using applications such as images & videos and hyperlinks to websites.
The internet - Google	Search Engines - The internet allowed me to carry out secondary research by finding web articles and statistics. I could analyse this information to find further information for the planning and research section. For example I found an article about police raiding an illegal rave which provided an insight into the public eyes views on the scene. The search engine allowed me to find specific example instead of going through hours’ worth of newspaper articles to find something relevant which was time-efficient and cost-efficient.			In terms of gathering information to specify our target audience and give our sequence a specific representation of the characters, very effective. Other than that, in production and post-production it was not much use. From using this we have learnt that there is lots of potential information on the internet – it can be considered as a useful resource. It is also cost efficient which links well with our low budget as an independent film production.
IPhone 4		The IPhone was a great form of communication, for example using I-message to contact Rob and other actors to let them know what time we were meeting to film. Also, it was our main recording device in the raves as it is small; good quality and still gave the phone footage effect we were looking for.		Very effective. It saved us from having to bring an expensive, large HD camera to raves which would potentially get lost, damaged or stolen. It also enabled us to have a realistic hand held effect when recording providing us with a creative and innovative edge that we would have lacked using a proper HD camera.
Final Cut Express			This was used to edit and put together the final piece to a high quality. We were able to use various effects and editing techniques that are not available on programmes also available to use such as IMovie which gave us an advantage over other candidates. This included technique’s such as colour fading the scene at 0:08 The learning process was helpful for future productions using this tool.	Very effective in terms of the Post production as it allowed us to use advanced editing and effect techniques that others were not able to use. However due to its complexity it was not always as straight forward as we would of hoped, meaning it was sometimes time consuming and frustrating – e.g. sitting trying to figure out how to add a particular effect.
HD Camera	We used the camera to record our Vox Pops. We done this so that we could record how the candidates were answering questions as well as what they were saying.	This HD camera was used to record the footage outside of the rave scenes in the opening sequence.  For example recording the group of mates walking down the high road to meet up with Jamie. It was useful as the quality of footage captured was very high which gives us a creative edge comparing to if we had used a basic quality camera. The camera is also fairly basic in terms of how to use it which made the task or recording footage a lot simpler. It was also used to record the credits which worked well as it was able to capture Jamie’s hands with the sheets and avoid all background footage, enabling us to leave the footage with the desired effect. An example of this is at 01:29 in our sequence.		This camera aided our success by doing the required job and allowing us to record in various locations with different styles and still coming out in a good high quality. I would say I learnt how to use the camera but it is fairly basic meaning there’s not a lot of learning required. However we did learn that uploading the footage can sometimes be an issue and you should check the camera is viable to connect to the computer you’re using before recording any footage.